Protecting your video/image copyrights

[Ryan McGinnis]

What we need is another topic here about web design and code to protect images and video. A lot of people out there try to use are work to get web traffic for their sites to sell advertising. It is really no different then any other media now where its all about the advertising $$$.

There is a lot of different scripts out there that can be helpful without helping the competition out too much. Tim, can there be a photo video rights protected code only topic?

There really is no inexpensive way to protect web images and video. That "right click disabled" thing is easily circumvented. Flash files can be opened and the images extracted. Worst comes to worst, you can just do a printscreen and paste into Photoshop. Any kind of video that can be streamed can be saved with the right program, and of course any video downloaded can be immediately copied and distributed just by going to YouTube. (Not saying this is legal or ethical, just that that's the way it is.) In short, the only way to protect your content is to never put it on the internet. Only put content on the internet that you can afford to have stolen. I can afford to have my 850px wide images stolen, seeing as there isn't much you can do with them in terms of image sales, so I post those (and still go after those who violate the copyright.) I wouldn't want my 3,500 pixel wide images to be stolen, so those don't go on the net, ever. If I ever got that sweet shot of extraterrestrials partying with Elvis, I sure as heck wouldn't put it on my website.

The only effective way that I've ever heard is using something like Digimarc, which is expensive, since they actually trawl the net looking for infringements for you.

 

[David Drummond]

Post moved to new thread to address this issue outside of the copyright reports forum. To report copyright abuse, use this topic:
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6946

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

My recommendation is to cut back on quality and resolution(for example to 320x240 px).

 

[Phil Kurimski]

Isn't there a way to hard code your name into images you take? I know when I take a pic the ISO...shutter speed etc are hard coded onto the image and can be seen when you bring up the properties of that image. There is also a space for Copyright but I am unsure how to get that into the image automatically.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

I simply slap my name and copyright info right onto the image. Yes, it takes away from the image but in the end everybody can still enjoy the image and I can be fairly certain that unless somebody really wanted to take a lot of time to get it off it will stay safe. Even with people taking something like that off, it would likely do some damage to the photo as I make sure there are plenty of letters and it covers the entire width of the image.

 

[Eric Flescher]

Youtube infringement

I like your youtube set up Paul.

Copyright in the photos are good (I rarely do this because I don't have the time but I maybe I should put the copyright etc in all of mine too.). You can put the pic in the background under a layer too using a different opacity.

I still have not gotten a quality on the following:

(1) if you have a Youtube video and another person links to it (example in the favorite on their website ) and put the link and window on their youtube area. Is that copyright infringement?

I don't think so. I mean if you don't want someone to link to your video , don't use youtube. Any video YOU put out on youtube I feel is fair game for use. I am talking about linking not copying mind you.
thoughts?
::

Hello, this is my first time posting so I hope this benefits the group. A few weeks ago one of my videos was snagged by someone on YouTube and used to direct people to a phishing site via text link added to the piece. I only learned of this when noticing a duplicate in the "related videos" column. Myself along with others suffering the same fate managed to get this person shut down but needless to say, it raised concern. I wondered how they did this so I did some digging and found the following. I don't know if this was the service they may have used but it illustrated the vulnerability of all web video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1wKsy8RP0Y

Obviously people have zero respect for copyright these days so I came up with the idea of adding text at the beginning of each video for the purpose of making my work undesirable to possible scammers. Take a look at any one of my videos to see what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/pawleewurx

Nowhere in the YouTube user agreement does it allow for the use of other people's material so we are well within our rights to protect our work any way we see fit.

Section 5 of http://www.youtube.com/t/terms E. You agree to not engage in the use, copying, or distribution of any of the Content other than expressly permitted herein, including any use, copying, or distribution of User Submissions of third parties obtained through the Website for any commercial purposes.

For those leery of the popular YouTube or LiveVideo services, you may want to check out a lesser known service catering to us that recently opened. Hope this helps. p

http://www.stormtube.org/

 

[John Erwin]

Isn't there a way to hard code your name into images you take? I know when I take a pic the ISO...shutter speed etc are hard coded onto the image and can be seen when you bring up the properties of that image. There is also a space for Copyright but I am unsure how to get that into the image automatically.

You're talking about jpeg EXIF data. Unfortunately that cannot be relied upon to stay intact since it can be stripped/manipulated. Probably better to use a multi-pronged approach; in addition to using EXIF data also use visible copyright info right on the image. There's also several "watermarking" techiniques available that should also be looked at for those concerned.

 

[mikedeason]

Thank you for the compliment. I'll take a stab in saying that so long as the video is embedded within the page that was uniquely generated by YouTube then it is safe. It would in effect still be the same as viewing on the author's channel. It's when someone snags the flv file and reuploads it to a user channel that is not by the author is where I think the copyright infringement lies.

Also, for those wondering how to do a © symbol on a Windows pc...

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map

Click the symbol you want, hit [Select] then [Copy] and it's placed on your clipboard. Go to your text editor for your image, right click to select [Paste] (or [ctrl][v]) and walla. Takes no effort yet makes the most powerful statement.

Got an even quicker method that will work in most cases. Just hold down the [Alt] key and type in [0][1][6][9]. The © should pop right up!

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

I actually have a question regarding the topic of copyright infringment that pertains to a recent weather event. So maybe someone or Dave could help me out here.
My dad got an email from one of his neighbors that contained a photo of the reported Aledo tornado from April 17th. He subsequently forwarded the email to me so that I may see the pic. Unfortunately this pic has no copyright sig/website on it at all. But I do know it was from April 17th b/c I live (from) down there and I know the history of the area. I emailed my dad back and asked him who took the pic with the hope/intention of getting in contact with that person so that I may have his permission to share it. Well my dad tells me it was taken by friends of the neighbors, so not the neighbors themselves. That makes it more or less a wild goose chase to track the person down who took the pic. With that said, I would really like to share the pic with the ST community via post in wx/chasing room but obviously am a bit hesitant. Its an amazing pic of HUGE lowering almost on top of the million dollar high school facility and football stadium.

What should I do?

 

[Dick McGowan]

For those leery of the popular YouTube or LiveVideo services, you may want to check out a lesser known service catering to us that recently opened. Hope this helps. p

http://www.stormtube.org/

I'm surprised hardly anyone has commented on this. Thanks for the link, Paul! This looks like it is strictly for storm chasers, no strings attached, and the quality blows youtube away. I don't see any compression that youtube loves to do either. The players are also a LOT bigger than youtube's. Pretty cool under the descriptions, you can choose from "tornado, wall cloud, timelapse, etc."

Whoever created this chaser-friendly website, thanks!